a time to love and a time to die, douglas sirk (1958)
J’aurais dû couper les passages les plus explicitement anti-nazis pour que le film soit encore plus anti-nazi, car moins est souvent plus fort que plus. D. Sirk
“Melodrama is a machine for producing and amplifying affect. It gets its “truth” by abandoning naturalism and verisimilitude in favor of a certain kind of artifice, in which emotions are frozen and held static, and magnified and intensified through a kind of collapsing of time and place. “Melodramatic” often means “exaggerated”: and melodramas get their power by exaggerating the fluctuations of feeling, by stretching everything out into a roller-coaster ride of extreme ups and downs, and especially by theatricalizing emotion. This artifice is a sort of distancing, which is what often makes melodrama ridiculous; but at the same time, the melodramatic focus can be intense and devastating, in the way a more naturalistic treatment could never be.” S. Shaviro
i am screaming but you can’t hear me
escape from alcatraz, don siegel (1979)
No one has ever escaped from Alcatraz…
And no one ever will !
dust devil, richard stanley (1992)
here is no good or evil, only spirit and matter. Only movement toward the light – and away from it.
fat city, john huston (1972)
The white race is in its decline. Started downhill in 1492 when Columbus discovered syphillis.
A model of understatement, it’s a movie of indelible, unobtrusive details, like the thick layer of smoke hanging over a dingy boxing arena, or the slouched silhouettes at the local tavern on a lazy afternoon. Laced with empathy, these moments all add up to a fully realized portrait of failure. Huston is aided immeasurably by his cinematographer, the great Conrad L. Hall. From the Hopper-esque light on an empty city block to the seedy murkiness of dive bars, Hall achieves a gritty, naturalistic look that, like Huston’s direction, never calls attention to itself. With its relentlessly downbeat tone, Fat City at times threatens to verge into self-parody (the recurring Kris Kristofferson song, “Help Me Make It Through the Night,” doesn’t help. allmovieguide
the searchers, john ford (1958)
What makes a man to wander?
What makes a man to roam?
What makes a man leave bed and board
And turn his back on home?
Ride away, ride away, ride away.
Ethan is an incensed Indian-hater, although he is very much akin to them and is knowledgeable about their way of life. He can speak the Comanche language fluently, and he is an expert in how they live – he acknowledges or accepts their belief that a dead Comanche warrior without his eyes will wander in the spirit-land forever. But he belongs to neither the Indian world or the white world – doomed forever to remain a lone son of the frontier. filmsite.org***
roman par polanski (1984)
“seuls les cochons vont au cinéma!” s’il fallait en croire ce slogan de la résistance peint sur les murs des cinémas de Cracovie, je devais être un fichu cochon. Car je connus bientôt chacun des sièges de bois luisant de toutes les salles de la ville.”
“je me convainquis de plus en plus que mon avenir était à paris. On était au plus haut de la “nouvelle vague”. on réalisait des films pour presque rien, et le plus souvent for mal, sous la responsabilité de jeunes amateurs sans expérience. Beaucoup connaissaient l’echec, mais ceux d’entre eux qui réussirent firent voler en éclat les vieilles recettes du succés. Le cinéma français était dans tous ses états, parce qu’il n’existait plus de formule garantissant la réussite. Les producteurs prenaient des risques considérables, craignant, s’ils éconduisait un jeune inconnu ou refusaient un scénario de trois pages incompréhensible, de rater le gros coup. Le snobisme intellectuel jouait lui aussi son rôle. Répugnant à passer pour des béotiens, les critiques encensaient des films “cérébraux” qui n’étaient pas seulement mal ficelés et lents mais encore prétentieux et soporifiques.”
“Il est difficile de discerner le rôle que les drogues ont pu jouer dans leur monde…polanski est connu pour ses films macabres…il semblerait bien aussi que les autres victimes aient eu des côtés louches”
“Mister Polanski? Police. Je voudrais vous parler. J’ai un mandat pour vous arrêter.”
the seven year itch, billy wilder (1955)
I think it’s just elegant to have an imagination. I just have no imagination at all. I have lots of other things, but I have no imagination.
A stairway to nowhere! I think that’s just elegant!
Rachmaninoff… It isn’t fair… Every time I hear it, I go to pieces… It shakes me, it quakes me. It makes me feel goose-pimply all over. I don’t know where I am or who I am or what I’m doing. Don’t stop. Don’t stop. Don’t ever stop!
When it gets hot like this, you know what I do? I keep my undies in the icebox!
-Of Sex and Violence?
-Well we had to spice up the title a little!
I had onions at lunch. I had garlic dressing at dinner. But he’ll never know, because I stay kissing sweet, the new Dazzledent way.
-There’s gin and vermouth. That’s a martini.
-Oh, that sounds cool! I think I’ll have a glass of that. A big tall one!
-Because I can explain everything: the stairs, the cinnamon toast, the blond in the kitchen.
un prophète, jacques audiard (2009)
As in most gangster movies, character interest and plot interest are the same in A Prophet: a man’s identity is the moves he makes(…) There are all sorts of frameworks here, a patricidal Greek tragedy, a Burt Lancaster melodrama of a old man deluding himself of his power, (…) They’re all just scaffolding for what really counts, in a world where relationships are only economic, as if every man were a nation-state(…) At the least, it’s (…) as much a termite piece as The Wire. David Phelps
“A Prophet” also spoke to Audiard’s long-standing interest in what he calls “self-education, the building of someone’s character.” “I looked at him and that was that, though I didn’t trust my instincts and auditioned 40 other actors before I chose him,” the director says with a laugh. “When I looked into his eyes there was no melancholy, no tragedy, just someone very open, very light, very full of life.”
“What interests me about genre is that the public connects immediately with it, it has certain rules, certain codes the audience recognizes,” Audiard explains. “I can use that to create something very big,” an aim which for “A Prophet” includes “creating icons, images for people who don’t have images, the Arabs in France.”"I like that it’s a popular form of cinema with mass appeal,” the director continues. “Art cinema aspects and elements can be inserted and reach the widest audience.” kenneth turan***
mr sardonicus, william castle (1961)
What I had not forseen was that the face of my father, the muscles stretched by a terrible death recoil, would look directly and hideously upon me, the dead lips drawn back in a constant and soul-shattering smile.
You must know first of all that I am the victim of a little domestic tragedy. My wife does not love me. She has always been a wife in name only. She is revolted, you see. Revolted by my face.
homicidal, william castle (1961)
La plupart de ses histoires décrivent des mises en scène morbides. Ce sont des fictions criminelles où les coupables font inévitablement appel à des simulacres, à des mises en scène. Le spectacle fait ainsi partie intégrante de récits conçus comme des trompe-l’oeil pour le spectateur comme pour les personnages. Son intérêt pour les machinations est sans doute à l’origine de cette qualité, un goût acquis, selon Castle lui-même, à la vision des Diaboliques d’Henri-Georges Clouzot. Castle est ainsi comme les propres protagonistes de ses films, occupé à monter des stratagèmes destinés à faire peur. (…) Castle, sans en avoir l’intention, a inventé une forme d’art inconsciemment conceptuelle. Cette qualité a évidemment été déterminée par une histoire, celle du cinéma hollywoodien classique, qui arrivait à son terme. Il y a comme un parfum de décadence et de décomposition dans le cinéma de William Castle. L’auteur d’Homicidal est le démiurge ironique d’un monde de simulacres, fonctionnant sur la programmation mentale et la mémoire de son spectateur, délaissant la profondeur de ses modèles pour en interroger les mécanismes. JF-Rauger*
the tingler, william castle (1959)
Ladies and gentlemen, please do not panic!
But SCREAM! Scream for your lives!
Positioning itself over the spinal column, the “tingler” can crush the spine’s bones if it is not promptly destroyed by a piercing scream. Small electric motors installed under random theater seats shocked viewers out of their minds with a mini-bolt of electricity during especially tense moments. Castle also planted fake members of the audience who would, at strategic moments, let out a blood-curdling scream and faint. The film would stop, the house lights would turn on, and theater personnel would carry the unconscious person outside. retrogalaxy**
house on a haunted hill, william castle (1959)
The wife, probably in a fit of rage, threatened her husband with the knife, and then,
carried away by hysteria, took a swing at him and simply went on from there.
The film is best known for a famous promotional gimmick used in the film’s original theatrical release called “Emergo”
W. Castle placed an elaborate pulley system in some theaters showing the film;
allowing a plastic skeleton to be flown over the audience at the appropriate time.
L’Enfer d’Henri-Georges Clouzot, Serge Bromberg & Ruxandra Medrea (2009)
« Il y a deux histoires, d’abord celle de Clouzot qui se fixe un défi improbable qui le conduira au drame ; et puis il y a celle de ce qu’aurait été le film s’il avait été mené à son terme. Aux images existantes, et pour combler les manques, j’ai donc demander à deux comédiens Bérénice Bejo et Jacques Gamblin de jouer les scènes du scénario originale, à partir des dialogues écrits par Clouzot » Serge Bromberg***
fingers, james toback (1978)
Do you believe this? This is the Jamies, man! “Summertime, Summertime!” -
the most musically inventive song of 1958! What are you eating? Shrimp?
Are you gonna tell me this song doesn’t go with your shrimp?
deadly is the female, joseph h. lewis (1950)
Bart, I’ve been kicked around all my life, and from now on, I’m gonna start kicking back.
I saw the two of you, the way you were looking at each other tonight, like a couple of wild animals. Almost scared me.
No guts, nothing! I want action!
pervertissima, jean louis van belle (1969)
Pervertissima ajoute la notion capitale du mélange des genres, avec une écriture libre qui se réapproprie le collage ludique des cadavres exquis des Surréalistes. Ça commence encore comme un mondo dans lequel un gourou de la poésie “métaformelle” règne sur des disciples portant masques d’animaux qui se flagellent pour se libérer des “interdits économico-sexuels”, message lancinant dont la phrase-clé est “Ur ta ur ta ir ta ur taguère” ; puis ça dérape en une effarante série B d’épouvante avec un clinicien frankensteinien – le truffaldien SIMONO – droguant des malades mentaux pour les transformer en surhommes et devenir maître du monde. C. Bier***
breakfast at tiffany’s, blake edwards (1961)
Capote was most upset with the changes Paramount made in the screen version of his novel. In particular with the change of the ending. Instead of a remembrance of Holly, the narrator ends up convincing Holly to stay in New York with him by making her realize that, like her and her cat, they belong to each other. This totally changed the theme of the story. In the book, Holly is always traveling-searching for a place to belong, a place she never finds.
van gogh, maurice pialat (1991)
« Comment éclairer et cadrer un film sur un peintre dont les toiles sont célèbres, à défaut d’être connues vraiment. La tentation la plus commune, celle à laquelle ont cédé Minnelli, Huston et beaucoup d’autres, Renoir même jusqu’à un certain point, est de faire évoluer les acteurs devant des décors naturels ou reconstitués, aux allures de toiles peintes. Tentation de la reconstitution, l’écran devient toile maître, l’image est comme la copie d’une peinture, exécuté par un artisan docile, les scènes procèdent du tableau vivant, les personnages se déplacent comme dans un musée. Conséquence première : la vie n’y est pas. La vie justement, ce que veut Pialat. Van Gogh n’est pas un film sur la peinture, c’est un film de vie. » Pascal Mérigeau
